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Reading
most of the online reviews of Christopher Golden's The Lost
Slayer serial novel, I can only assume that there are two
versions - the one that everyone else seems to have read, and
the one sitting on the bookshelf in front of me.
Established
continuity can be one of the strengths of a spin-off novel,
but it can also be a weakness. We've seen this with Pocket
Books' alternate season three of Buffy and the number
of Angel novels they've tried to fit in between City
of and Hero.
The
Lost Slayer also suffers from this need to remain true to
the television series' continuity. Many fans have speculated
that the Watchers Council could kill off Slayers a la Buffy
in Prophecy Girl in order to give them an army of Slayers,
or what would happen if the opposite occurred, and instead of
killing a Slayer the forces of darkness merely seek to imprison
her.
Dark
Times sets up this second scenario, with Buffy - five years
out of her time - coming face to face with her replacement.
Or rather, with Faith's replacement. Realising just why
she's been imprisoned August has a simple solution to the problem
- she must kill Buffy.
The
problem with this element of the story is that in a spin-off
novel it's ultimately pointless. In a piece of fanfic,
the writer could kill off Buffy and veer into his or her own
continuity, but here we know that August won't kill Buffy.
Furthermore, although Golden probably wouldn't have known this
at the time, Joss Whedon has said the line of Slayer succession
rests with Faith, so her killing Buffy wouldn't have called
a new Slayer anyway.
Escaping
from her prison, Buffy finds herself in a nightmare world similar
to the vampire-fest of The Wish, only the fact that we've
seen it all before meant it didn't really have that much of
an impact for me. Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale during
the early part of season four, Willow is taking centre stage
(as you would assume from the cover).
Despite
being pretty violent for a Buffy novel I can't say I
found an awful lot to enjoy about Dark Times. Having
to stick with the TV series' continuity means that I suspect
some magical bollocks will be brought into play to resolve the
situation, and for me, the identity of the vampires' King wasn't
the shocker that some people seem to have found it.
Another
average installment then, and I'm seriously starting to doubt
whether this one is going to be worth the twelve quid that it'll
end up costing. Back
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